Madam Speaker, we have seen other judges acts over the last four years since 1998. In 1996 we saw a Judges Act, the name or number of which I am not familiar with right now, but there have been four such bills. As we go through the bill, it is all about compensation. There are probably 10 or 15 pages on annuity scheduling.
The bill gives judges close to a 12% raise. In 1998 they had an 8.3% raise. The salaries of judges are indexed yearly. Could the member enlighten us a little more on remuneration? When we look at different sectors of criminal justice we see that in 1998 and prior the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had its wages frozen for five years. For five years the police forces had their wages frozen.
Then in March 1998 they were awarded a 3% increase, retroactive to January 1. In April they received another 1% and later on in October, three-quarters of 1%. Over the past six, seven and eight years, our police forces have seen marginal salary increases of up to 4% or 5%.
Are we seeing a higher level of concern or importance respecting the remuneration of higher levels of the public service? We have seen close to a 26% increase over the last few years when we factor in the indexing. I wonder if it is a higher level than other public sector employees are receiving. Why is it that the government seems to be paying such close attention to high level public servants when frontline police forces are seeing such nominal pay increases? Could the member enlighten us on that a little?